I don't know anyone who has such a vechicle. But in my opinion the vechicle gets the best mileage when you drive it in the city. When you think about it a gasoline engine uses pretty much all its energy for propulsion in the highway and so does the hybrid. So where is the advantange??

Also my suggestion for you to check the mileage would be to zero out the trip odometer when you fill up the tank. The next time you fill up the tank check the trip odometer and the gas pump. From this information you can calculate the MPG most accurately.

... one of the advantages of hybrid technology is that the engine can be tuned to run at the one single speed where it is most efficient. Driving a generator is a mechanical loss, but no more so than running the drive train of a conventional vehicle. There's a net efficiency advantage to the hybrid because of that ability of the engine to run at one optimum speed.

Changes in speed are also much more efficient since no small amount of fuel consumption comes from mixture enrichment to compensate for drops in flow when the throttle is opened.

3. I thought it was kind of "sucky" too, but I'd like to know what ...

...a regular Highlander really gets. Toyota Hybrids DO get better mileage in the City than they get on the Highway. I've heard that Honda Hybrids are just the opposite because of the system Honda uses.

I think Toyota Hybrids actually do worst when you use the Cruse control. The Hybrid Highlander has several different display settings within the instrument cluster, which shows when you are using the engine and when you are charging the battery. In "Cruse," the engine seems to work more and you coast less.

My Dad did do the MPG calculations with your method, but I don't know what his calculation was. I'm just going by what the Highlander's MPG computer said it was getting.

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